1. Field of the Invention
An apparatus for extracting crab meat from uncooked crabs thereby preserving the meat flavor and texture with the quality of the extracted crab meat being similar to "hand picked" crab meat. The crab extractor includes opposed, large cylindrical rollers oriented in vertically superimposed relation with the lower roller being perforated. Cleaned, uncooked crabs which have been broken along a longitudinal center line from front to rear along the bottom are fed between the rollers with the feelers first by a belt conveyor. The rollers are driven which forces crab meat through the perforations or holes in the bottom roller which is scraped off by a doctor blade into an auger which conveys the extracted meat to a point of discharge. The shell components of the crab are not forced through the perforations and are scraped off of both rollers by doctor blades onto a conveyor. The rollers are interconnected by large meshing gears at one end thereof in order to rotate both rollers at the same speed in opposite directions. The lower roller is driven which in turn drives the upper roller and the auger which conveys the extracted meat from interiorally of the bottom roller is independently powered.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various efforts have been made to separate shellfish into separate meat and shell components which are conventionally separated by "hand picking" which is highly labor-intensive. Various machines and apparatuses have been developed to assist in the separation or extraction of meat from various shellfish. The following U.S. patents are relevant to this field of endeavor.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,335,133 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,688,344 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,829,931 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,264 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,478 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,349 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,633,547
None of the above patents disclose the specific structure of the crab extractor of the present invention including the manner in which the shellfish are prepared and conveyed to the machine and the structure for separating the meat by forcing it through a perforated roller and removing the meat from the interior surface of the perforated roller.